Thursday, April 14, 2011

Tuesday night's Stitcher's Group meeting was . . . interesting . . . to say the least! Oh, it all started out innocently enough. Fifteen or so ladies gathered together in the church conference room, chatting and passing around quilt blocks and working on hand work. All of a sudden, a few of the women in the back of the room started coughing violently! Next thing you know, more women are violently coughing -- near choking-sounding! People are fleeing the room! I was sitting up near the entrance, furthest away from the original coughers, and so I thought I was safe . . . and then I felt a slight tickle in my throat, followed by a bit of a burn . . . BAM! I was overcome, too!

You've never seen a room of quilters drop what they're doing and flee so fast in your life! One of the women (who will remain nameless) was showing another her "pepper spray" and accidentally set it off. That tiny little mist of pepper spray was powerful! It even followed us out of the room into the hallway. A lot of the ladies fled to the outdoors. Needless to say, it meant an early evening for most of the group. But a couple of us hardcore quilters blew our noses (which really helped clear the irritation), and stayed put. Including the perpetrator (although partly because we brow-beat her into staying and partly because her ride wasn't ready to leave)! It was a fun, funny night and I laughed a lot.

I actually even managed to get some things done! For example, I learned how to "pop" the seams of my four-patches, so that the center lays flat.

It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but if you look closely, you can see that at the center, the four seams lay in a square, so there's not a huge bulk of fabric at the center. There's some significance to this method, but I'm not ready to share on that yet -- another post.

I also managed to finish quilting my first block of the BOM!

It's nearly impossible to see the quilting in the small photo, which is a shame, because I really love the design! I used a fairly curvy, lot-of-movement design in the center of the block, and then in the sashing, I quilted a simple 2-1/2" square in each corner. I've decided to switch up the quilting in the centers, but stay consistent on the squares in the sashing.

It may be a bit easier to see the quilting from the back. I didn't condense this picture, so if you click on it, it'll give you a bigger photo, and the quilting is a lot more visible. My thinking is that the squares will form their own pattern and really accentuate the more detailed quilting of the centers.

I'm really very pleased with how this turned out, and now I'm anxious to get the sashing on all my completed blocks, so I have some handwork to do when I have my surgery. Hopefully we'll get that scheduled for the first of June -- and I'll want plenty to keep me occupied!

So, to recap: pepper spray and quilters really do NOT mix, although it does make for a lot of laughter and hilarity. I probably would have finished a lot more stitching Tuesday night without the pepper spray -- but this entry wouldn't have been near as fun to share!

1 left a comment . . .:

That is just to funny. I bet you had much, cough, laugh....BREATH!My friends sister had pepper spray in her purse. She was having dinner with friends and went to get her wallet and guess what happened...yup, it went off! Cleared the restaurant. Good thing they had sense of humor about it and didn't sue her.

Your blocks look wonderful. Did you hand quilt? If so, you did a fabulous job!